Monday, April 09, 2007

Detached

I've been thinking about some heavy shit over the last 48 hours, spending time with family and seeing them from a new persective, somehow. A darker lens, one that's slightly disconnected. Detached (yeah, kinda like a retina). Odd things started floating through my brainpan as I read Steven King's latest offering, Lisey's Story, on the leather couch of my 3am insomnia early this morning.

The book is about a widow, still grieving (of course) and so naturally I thought of my Aunt, who was married to my Mom's brother, who passed away last August from amyloidosis, the really ugly kind (congestive heart failure). She spent Easter with my cousin and his wife. I guess last week she told my mom that at some point before my Uncle died, he had daffodils planted in the garden outside their kitchen window, and last week, they bloomed, and my Aunt would sit and cry every morning, looking at them. The snow killed most of the daffodils this weekend, and it made me wonder how that made her feel; if she was relieved not to have to see them anymore, or if somehow that connection was keeping her love alive, despite the pain, and seeing them perish was just one more ring in the tree of sorrow.

I've never lost anyone I loved, at least, not while I still loved them. My ex-boyfriend died. I am still more than a little disturbed how unaffected I am by his loss. I mean, I feel sorrow for his family, for his kids, for his friends. I watch YouTube and think, man, Joel would have loved this shit, but he died before it really took off. He wanted to be a director. Movies were his thing. I think he might have had done some cool things. No tears, no angst.

Detach.

My own husband (three's a charm) isn't long for this world. He's convinced he has another 10 years before he find out what's on the other side of the veil. His numerous healthy problems along with a bad attitude often make me wonder, at exactly these times of the night, when I'm already awake and full of this blackness, if he might not be a little bit right. I push those thoughts away whenever they creep in. Not ready.

Detach.

Lisey's dead husband suffered unspeakably as a boy, at the hands of his father, full of the bad-gunky that King is so good at creating in his books. This makes me think of my own bad-gunky legacy, courtesy of my own Dad. Angry Dad was part and parcel of my early years. I learned quickly how to walk adeptly on egg shells. Egg shells. Broken. Lisey's husband has a place he escaped to as a boy, and as a man just this side of crazy. I had a place, too, it wasn't nearly as literarily interesting, or magically frighteningly fanciful, but it was an escape, nonetheless. Some of the people in the book go catatonic when they stay there too long. This scares me almost as much as drowning, in a nonsensical, fantastical way, because sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just check out, mentally. Buh-bye.

Detach.

All this leads me to wonder "How broken am I?" Jesus the underdog loves broken people, collects them. I spend hours every week in church, listening, learning, singing, praising, under the assumption that even in my broken state I am saved. Saved from sin and death. But no matter how strong my faith is, or how many bible verses I read and study, there is always doubt; am I belay slave? Or worse, am I back-clipping, and any minute my rope is gonna break? And I will Free Fall.

Detach.

I fell asleep with the book on my chest, and dreamed of boo'ya moon. And when I woke up, I had a blanket on my feet and the light was switched off, and my book was on the table, bookmark in place.